Mission Hill Native, Disco Queen Donna Summer Dies

Disco queen Donna Summer has died following a long battle with cancer. She was 63.

LaDonna Adrian Gaines — as she was originally known — was born in Boston, and raised in a Mission Hill triple-decker she compared to an orphanage, with her other siblings and cousins living above and below.

Her first experience singing in public was at Grant A.M.E. Church in Roxbury. She was just 10 years old.

"The day that I got up to sing, nobody was ready for what came out. Neither was I," Summer said. "It was this big voice... I started crying, everybody else started crying, it was quite an amazing moment in my life."

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